Chapter Fifteen

Solan waved off the last pancake his mother offered him and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his full belly. Across the table his father turned a page in his newspaper and snapped it out straight, his fingers holding each edge the only thing of him visible. His mother offered the last pancake to Kyr instead and Kyr accepted it, smiling absently in thanks as he slathered it in syrup and stuffed a forkful into his mouth. The late morning sun fell across his hair, where the blue had begun to grow out black, and laid a stripe of gold across the tiled kitchen floor.

After breakfast Solan volunteered to do the dishes and Kyr volunteered to help him, while his father retired to his favourite armchair to finish reading the newspaper and his mother wandered down to her studio to work on a new sculpture. Solan flicked on the little radio over the sink, keeping the volume down low, and hummed along as he scrubbed the dishes and handed them over to Kyr for drying.

“So what do you do around here for fun?” Kyr asked. “And where do the plates go?”

Solan pointed him to the right cupboard. “Me personally or in general?”

Amused, Solan leaned over and kissed his temple quickly. “There’s a movie theatre and a theatre theatre. Bowling, a couple of bars, the arena. Um... There’s some hiking trails nearby too, but I don’t know if they’re open in the winter. That’s about it, I guess.”

“Maybe we can go play hockey.” Kyr wiped his damp hands on the dishtowel he was holding. “You got any friends here? Your old boyfriend?”

“He’s probably still around,” Solan said reluctantly. “I haven’t really kept in touch with people back here. A lot of them think my parents overstepped in sending me to Oakenheart. Pretending like I’m human.”

“You’re half-human.” Kyr paused, grinning. “So does that mean you have to fight yourself?”

Solan swatted him with the wet dishcloth. “If you really want to do something, we can go for a walk. I’ll show you around.”

“In a bit. I’m still too fuc—too full to be walking anywhere.” Kyr glanced towards the empty hall and slid his arms around Solan’s waist, stretching up a bit to kiss his jaw. “Think your mom would be annoyed if I asked to see her studio?”

“No. I’ll take you.” Solan paused a moment to kiss the tip of Kyr’s nose and then his mouth, lingering a few moments before pulling back and leading him down to the studio at the back of the house.

His mother was busy forming clay into a vaguely equine shape, her hands and the apron she wore over her T-shirt and jeans already streaked with grey, but she greeted them with a smile and welcomed Kyr to look around all he wanted. Solan stood back a bit to let him explore, studying the new paintings his mother had started and finished while he was at school, handing her one of the clay knives neatly arrayed beside her when she asked for it.

“That for yourself or are you selling it?” he asked, nodding to the clay figure she was trimming. It was beginning to take shape under her skilled hands, transforming from a pile of clay layered over a wire armature to a wide-eyed foal with nose outstretched.

“I have a show in a few weeks,” she replied without pausing in her work. “I’m hoping to sell most of what I take there. Kyr, have you done any sculpting?”

“If you’d like, I can teach you later.” She glanced up and smiled, first at Kyr then fondly at Solan. “Solan hasn’t been interested in clay since he was a little boy.”

“That’s because I was never any good with it.”

“I’ve still got that little octopus you made.” She grinned, her fingers tweaking the foal’s nose into flared nostrils.

“It had seventeen arms.”

“And it was very cute. You only need to ask, Kyr, if you’re interested.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Yorke. Maybe I will a bit later. Me and Solo are going for a walk, I think.” Kyr raised an eyebrow at Solan.

“Yeah, going to show him around town. We’ll be back for dinner.” Solan started out of the studio but turned back when his mother called his name.

“Take the cuff off.” She pointed to his ear.

“Oh yeah.” He slid it out of his ear and put it in the hip pocket of his jeans, then led Kyr out of the studio.

“So the whole earring thing...” Kyr started as they pulled on their coats. “Here, it’s bad for you to wear it?”

“It’s like... You know how people judge you for wearing expensive clothes and trying to do expensive things, when you’re not rich? Like your stepmother when she heard what my parents do.” Solan zipped up his coat. “Same sort of thing. People here would see it as me dressing up in clothes I don’t deserve. Acting like humans are better.”

“Shit, that’s complicated.” Kyr pulled his gloves on. “You know what I don’t get? Humans live here too, even though it’s Fae territory. And nobody’s, you know, tried to round the Fae up.”

“Arian Mawr’s neutral. It’s complicated, but my mom knows more about it. Something about an old treaty that means if anyone does invade here, it’s a major act of war that will make the current fighting look like a schoolyard brawl. My mom says an attack on Arian Mawr will bring the wild Fae out again too. It would be a really bad thing.” Solan opened the door and stepped out into the cool afternoon air, watching his breath steam out of his mouth in white streamers. “Ask her about it later.”

“Will do.” Kyr reached for his hand then stopped. “Can I...?”

“Yeah.” Solan laced their fingers together. “Fuck ‘em, right?”

“Man, language. Somebody’s teaching you bad habits.”

“Yeah, can’t imagine who that might be.” Squeezing Kyr’s hand, Solan led the way down the street.

They passed kids playing outside houses, building snowmen and snow forts, and a few of them stopped to look up and wave. Solan watched Kyr study them and tried to see it all through Kyr’s eyes; how the number of pointy-eared and fine-featured children outnumbered the rest ten to one; how one group of children were flinging snowballs at each other without actually touching them and another group were colouring the snow in bright and glittering patterns without using anything more than their fingers. A few of the houses they passed had red signs in the window declaring support for a human-free town, and Solan felt unease frisson through him as he saw there were more of them than there had been when he left.

When they got downtown, he showed Kyr where he’d gone to elementary school and where he’d played out his short-lived career in peewee baseball. They passed a few groups of people on the street—most of them Fae, only one or two human—and received mostly polite nods of greeting, though Solan saw a handful of raised eyebrows directed at his and Kyr’s joined hands. Kyr stayed uncharacteristically silent for most of the walk, asking only a few questions and smiling at Solan’s description of trying to hit the baseball and nearly falling over himself with the force of his swing.

It got colder as the sun started to set and they headed back towards Solan’s street, where most of the children had been called inside for dinner. Outside on the porch, Solan stopped Kyr and cupped his cheek with one gloved hand, studying his eyes.

“You all right? Usually you run your mouth non-stop.”

Kyr smiled up at him, but there was something sad in the curve of his mouth. “Yeah. Just... kind of a shock being hated just for who you are. Seeing it from the other side.”

“Don’t pick a fight, Kyr. If anyone does have a problem with you, let me handle it.” Solan saw Kyr’s eyes narrow slightly. “Yeah, I know, you don’t need protecting, but you’re human and you’re in Fae territory. It’d be like tossing a match into gasoline.”

“All right, point taken.” Kyr pulled away from him. “I’ll behave myself, but only because I don’t want to cause trouble for you or your parents. Let’s go in. I’m fucking starved.”

“That’s because you’re a bottomless pit,” Solan said, laughing and following him inside. He glanced out at the street automatically before closing the door, studying the darkness and wondering how many neighbours were watching them in disapproval, then shrugged it off and shut the door firmly.

They ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and Kyr seemed to regain his good cheer, chatting about the murals they were almost finished and the better grades he was getting in most of his classes. Solan let him talk, busy stuffing himself on homecooked meatballs and apple pie for dessert. After dinner his mother went back to her studio, and they joined his father in the living room to watch a movie. When it was over, his father asked if they wanted to come down to the shop the next day and give him a hand with some work. Kyr agreed before Solan could even open his mouth and after telling them to get to bed early so they could get up early, Solan’s father headed up to bed.

Solan got up to put another movie in the player then settled back onto the couch, putting an arm around Kyr. His mother poked her head in about an hour into the movie to say goodnight and ask them to keep it down, and silence broken only by the quiet murmur of the television settled over the house. Solan felt his eyes getting heavy and let them shut, dozing a little until something in the movie exploded and woke him up.

“You awake?” Kyr asked.

“Kinda.” He squinted at the TV, where the credits were beginning to roll. “Should go to bed.”

“Probably.” Kyr slid both hands under his shirt and nipped at the corner of his jaw. “Or we could stay down here a bit longer.”

“If my parents wake up...” Solan said unsteadily.

“Guess you’ll just have to be quiet then.”

Kyr slid off the couch until he was settled on his knees between Solan’s legs, one hand resting on Solan’s thigh and the other undoing his jeans. Tipping his head back, Solan closed his eyes and bit his lip to keep from waking the whole house up, threading his fingers through Kyr’s hair. Later, when they’d snuck upstairs on unsteady legs to curl up in Solan’s bed, he murmured an ‘I love you’ against the soft nape of Kyr’s neck and felt Kyr take his hand, squeezing it tight enough to hurt.

They were woken early the next morning, just after dawn, when the sun was only beginning to peek over the horizon and turn the dishwater grey sky blue. Solan hauled himself out of bed, leaving Kyr still curled up with the pillow over his head, and stumbled down to the bathroom to empty his bladder and wash his face and teeth. When he was done he went back and bodily pulled Kyr out from under the blankets, reminding him it had been his idea in the first place, and went downstairs to make coffee.

Kyr came down a few minutes later, fully dressed but rubbing at his eyes, and accepted a cup of coffee with a mumbled thank you. Solan left him there with his father and went back up to get dressed, trying not to look too longingly at his empty bed. By the time he went back downstairs, Kyr had already helped load up his father’s truck, and they were both waiting in the front hallway for him, bundled up against the chill of the morning.

Kids were beginning to line up for buses and parents were hurrying off to work as they turned off the home street and headed into town. Solan sleepily watched them out the passenger side window, feeling the press of Kyr’s shoulder and thigh against his in the close confines of the cab, and smiled a bit at one little girl who was busy making bright little sparklers in the air as she waited for her bus to arrive.

The shop was cold when they went in and Solan went to start a fire in the woodstove in the corner, thinking about all the times he’d done it before. The woodstove was old but he’d had enough practice to coax it into life, and by the time his father flipped the Closed sign to Open, the fire was crackling steadily and the shop had already begun to warm up.

Most of the morning was quiet, with only a single customer coming in to pick up the car they’d dropped off Friday morning. Solan and Kyr spent most of the time cleaning up the shop and organizing tools, and at lunch they were dismissed for an hour to go eat. They ducked out into the windy morning and Solan took Kyr down to get fish and chips at the place he usually went when he was home and helping his father in the shop. The girl at the counter arched a plucked eyebrow when she saw Kyr but didn’t comment, serving them their food in silence.

They were walking back, discussing where to go the next day, when Solan glanced up and saw exactly the person he didn’t want to see walking towards him, surrounded by a handful of friends. He thought about pulling Kyr across the street to avoid them, then squared his shoulders when he realized they’d been spotted anyway. Kyr didn’t seem to notice, picking out a few last chips from his basket, but he looked up when Solan slowed to a stop.

“Heard you’d brought a human to town, Sol.” Dark green eyes looked Kyr up and down and dismissed him. “Didn’t even come say hi. You too good for the rest of us now?”

Solan sighed. “No. Kyr, this is Bran. Bran, Kyr. And...” He hesitated a little, only recognizing one of Bran’s friends. “That’s Mina with the red hair, I don’t know the others.”

“That’s because you haven’t been around, Sol.” Bran looked at Kyr again and added conversationally, “We don’t want any fucking humans around here.”

“Too bad I’m not here for you then,” Kyr said, smiling brightly.

“Kyr.” Solan pulled him back, keeping a tight grip on his arm. Beneath his fingers muscles tensed and flexed, though Kyr’s expression remained pleasant. “We’re just here for a visit.”

“Before you go back to your fancy-ass school with your human boyfriend?” Bran shook his head, his upper lip curling. “You’re better than that, Sol.”

“Like you?” Solan asked before he could stop himself, the old familiar anger tightening his chest. “Working a dead-end job, never going more than a mile out of Arian Mawr?”

“It’s because of people like your buddy here that I don’t go. Why most of us stay here. You like being up there pretending to be something you’re not, listening to their news tell you that you’re less than dog shit, that you’re a wild animal that needs to be put down? Or are you human up here now too?” He smacked his palm into Solan’s forehead, knocking him back a step.

Solan heard Kyr growl and dug his fingers into Kyr’s arm to keep him from lunging at Bran. “I’m me. Leave us alone. My dad’s expecting us back any minute.”

“Your dad.” Bran’s mouth twisted down but he never got a chance to say whatever he was going to say next.

His friends had spread out a bit to form a half-circle blocking their path, all except Mina, who still stood behind Bran looking anxious. One of them grabbed Kyr suddenly and yanked him away from Solan, snagging his hair and jerking his head back to expose the tanned line of his throat. Solan had a moment where he saw a knife in the boy’s other hand, then he blinked and there was nothing there. Kyr stomped the heel of his boot down onto the boy’s instep and pulled out of his grip, then turned and headbutted him hard enough to break his nose. The other two boys in the group started forward but Bran snarled at them to stop and for a moment they all stood in frozen tableau except for the boy with the broken nose, who sank slowly down to his knees as blood poured out from between his fingers.

“Fuck, look at this mess,” Bran said in disgust.

“Your friend’s the one who started it.” Solan caught Kyr’s arm and pulled him into the road so they could go around the little group. “Let it go.”

He could see the shop just up the road when Bran called his name. Despite himself he looked back over his shoulder at Bran, who said, “Just remember who you are, Sol. All they’ll see is the human part, not the Fae.”

“I know who I am,” Solan said, and pulled Kyr up the street and into the safety of his father’s shop.